Damn Birds
by Danyella Skyler Silverfire
Summary: Iruka starts having a really bad day. It just gets worse from there, and the damn birds aren't helping matters.


**Title:** Damn Birds  
**Author:** Danyella Skyler Silverfire  
**Website:** Livejournal, or  
**Rating:** R  
**Genre(s):** Humor  
**Pairing(s):** ?  
**Summary:** Iruka starts having a really bad day. It just gets worse from there, and the damn birds aren't helping matters.  
**Warnings:** Iruka abuse.  
**Disclaimer:** Checks reality meter (It's remarkably Magic Eight Ball shaped). shakeshake Do I own Naruto? Nope still the right reality. Go eat a tuna sandwich instead. stares Damn.  
**Author's Note:** No idea where this one came from but I enjoyed playing around with how to make Iruka's day just that much worse.  
**Word Count:** 7,787

Damn Birds

Iruka groaned blearily as his alarm clock# started shrilling loudly cutting through the drowsy morning lassitude, dragging him out of a semi-restful alcohol induced slumber. _'There is **no way** its morning yet. Just no way. Fucking hangover. Toilet, water. Stupid Gai.'_

He turned over to slap off the clock before proceeding to the bathroom only to find his back meeting unfortunately empty air rather than the bed like he had been expecting. Unable to catch himself on anything but the loose blankets he landed painfully on his back on the hard floor next to his bed. As well as the boot that had been lying next to his bed for the last two weeks without bothering him, that was now digging into his spine at the small of his back.

Then the blankets rather insultingly fell on top of him, covering him. _'What a wake up. Use bathroom, get water, go back to bed. Yup, that's what I'll do. Note to self: Kill Gai.'_

Iruka started to sit up to relieve the pain in his back only to smack his head into the underside of the bedside table, the blankets did nothing to cushion the impact, thus causing the still shrilling alarm to fall down and hit him rather heavily on a bundle of nerves in his thigh before bouncing off to land on the floor rattling as he sat there cursing holding his head.

"How the fuck did I hit my head on the table? It's a fucking foot from my damn bed! Ow! Shit!" He winced as the early morning harshness of his own voice merely enhanced the pain in his head to an even sharper pain.

Snarling at the flaring pain, Iruka got up, holding the alarm clock. After looking around briefly he smirked evilly and threw it out his open bedroom window into the tree across street, startling the too-cheerful birds out of their perches and causing a stray genin# to fall out of the branches and land painfully on the ground having just barely dodged the potentially deadly projectile if the size of the hole it made in the trunk was any indication, and it was still sounding off. _'That's one well made alarm clock. Pity that it has to die.'_

Growling at the impertinence of the alarm clock to not just _die_, Iruka impaled it with a rather impressively thrown kunai. _'Huh, my aim's improved. Good for me. Yay. Die.'_ The alarm was unfortunately still living, the call was rather higher pitched and warbling now, but it was still alive and annoying.

There was another noise that was annoying him too, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. _'Oh, wait, it's Kiba. What the hell is **he** whining about?'_ Iruka stuck his head out the window and called down to the grumbling boy, "Kiba, stop whimpering and kill that alarm clock!"

"I do _not_ whimper! And why should I? You're not my teacher any more!" Kiba yelled back at Iruka annoyed at the accusation as much as the order.

Iruka just _looked_ at him.

Kiba flinched and started climbing up the tree again. "Yes, Iruka-sensei."

Pleased at the result Iruka gathered himself to vault over the bed only to realize that he for some reason was wearing the other boot so his foot caught on the bottom of the bed causing him to fall forward rather suddenly. Trying to save his dignity he tried to change his velocity only to end up taking a head dive out the window after the recently vacated alarm clock and kunai.

He managed to stop himself from going all the way through the window, but when his hands slammed into the wall below his window to catch himself he felt something stab into his right hand with a sharp cracking sound. Which was very unusual (not to mention confusing), because he was _very_ sure that there was no longer anything sharp and pointy anywhere near the outside of his window.

Not after his landlady had complained anyway. Something about it messing with the paint job. _'That razor wire was a bitch to remove, then I had to repaint the entire house because of the marks it left in the paint. **I** thought it was a nice pattern,'_ was his completely random thought as he felt the blood dripping from his hand and the bruise forming on his pelvis. _'Next she's going to complain about the blood ruining the paint.'_

Blowing his hair out of his face he lifted his hand carefully. He saw a decent sized dead crow dangling from where its beak had imbedded itself in his palm. "I hate you." After that completely random, non-sequential and true statement he pulled the broken necked crow from his hand and threw it over his shoulder (he was still hanging upside down) and into the open window of the apartment across the street and one floor up.

The startled yet creepily pleased shriek oddly filled him with some sort of disturbance. "I really need to do something about them. _Why_ do I have a fanclub? Let alone one like _that?_ Not now though. Work, then personal vendettas. They will die soon enough."

Pulling himself back through the window he rolled onto all fours next to the bed and glared at the evil boot an inch in front of his face. _'This is **not** my day.'_ Deciding not to tempt fate any further than he had to, he crawled under his bed; when he emerged on the other side he looked in confusion at the bra that he had found. "What the hell? What's one of Anko's bras doing under my bed? No, I don't want to think about it. Anko really needs to have someone else do her underwear shopping for her though. Way too many cutesy snakes#. I can't believe she actually _paid_ for _this_."

He casually tossed the bra onto his unmade bed. Rubbing his tired eyes he started towards his bathroom to have a shower and hopefully forget that he had ever even woken up before he found himself under the hot water. His pleasant meanderings were interrupted as his bare foot found the hard, unforgiving metal bed frame, causing him to stub his middle toe and fall over the corner of his bed and land head first at the foot of the bed, still slightly laying on the corner of the bed. Then he fell off onto his side. The side that oddly still had his kunai holster. His _full_ kunai holster.

"Ow." Rolling over onto his sore back again, Iruka growled in frustration, "I'm cursed aren't I? I just know it. This is _not_ natural." Pulling himself back into a sitting position he bumped lightly into the corner of his bed and had the bra fall onto the top of his head. "Oh kami-sama. I really hate you right now." Pulling the bra off of his head he stared at it from where it hung suspended from his thumb. "Anko, you spend entirely too much time here. I hate you. I'm going to bleach it."

Using the corner of his bed he painfully pulled himself to his feet and limped towards the door still eyeing the brightly colored monstrosity in his hand. His contemplation of just what he would do was brought to an abrupt end as he ran into his dresser (which was three feet to the left of his bathroom door) causing it to shake back and forth violently then fall on top of him.

Or at least it would have if he hadn't been a ninja; so as it was, it only got his foot, and that was because he had landed on top and had stepped onto a loose nail with his bare and stubbed foot. Also it stabbed him in the most sensitive part of the foot, the instep. "Fucking hell! I already needed a tetanus shot; now I really need one. Fuck, fuck, fuck. If only this was a dream and I could wake up. Unfortunately it's much too painful for that to be even remotely plausible."

He was limping even worse now, because of the boot on his right foot. Then on his left leg going down, there was a painful bruise forming on his thigh, a newly nastily bruised pelvis (all the way across), his stubbed toe, and, of course, his being stabbed in the instep with a nail (and that was just the lower body).

He finally made it the three feet to the door only to run into it. The thin, _painful_ part of the partially open door. "Ow, I hate you. I'll deal with _you_ later." Fully opening the door he limped through it only to have it slam shut behind him. "You're after me aren't you?!" Then, much to his embarrassment, he saw that his shirt was stuck onto the handle. "Heh? Well fuck you too."

Unhooking his shirt he turned around and dropped the bra into the sink after plugging it and turning on the water. Opening the cupboard across from the sink he pulled out a large container of ultra strong bleach and poured half the contents into the sink while the water was filling it.

When he put the bleach back he was disturbed to find Anko's matching panties halfway under a five gallon bottle of water. "What the fuck? Anko, you're sick. See if I _ever_ let you stay over again. I'm still finding the crap you scattered throughout my apartment, and that was last month and two major cleanings ago."

He tossed the snake covered and beaded panties into the sink and turned off the water. Iruka turned on the shower and went about preparing for his shower, disrobing, removing his boot, cleaning the hole in his foot, checking to see if his head was bleeding, tending the hole in his right hand, using the toilet, and having a couple Ibuprofen. Never mind a couple, more like half of the bottle.

The shower water finally having had long enough to heat, he stepped under the spray only to leap out shrieking and clutching a purple towel# to his chest as a shield from the icy water. "This is not _right_!"

Just as Iruka finished making his statement his foot gave way beneath him as it slipped in the water causing him to bang his head onto the counter and land on the _other_ boot (in the same spot as the first one) and was attacked by a two foot long beetle that came from beneath his sink. He would have started yelling at that point but as he drew air through his mouth to start, the beetle stepped into his mouth with each of its six feet (or so it seemed to him), one at a time causing him to start gagging instead.

Securing the towel around his waist, he grabbed the beetle and ran back into his room holding it out at arm's length, with a demented gleam burning in his eyes. Upon reaching the bed he jumped dramatically onto his knees, towel flapping around his legs, before the window and threw it at the building across the street with a loud primal yell of anger and revulsion; blatantly ignoring the voice yelling from his bathroom about him stealing its dinner.

He vaguely recognized Kurenai's shrieking as it splattered against her window, spider webbing the glass from the force of impact as well as covering it with the beetle's bright yellow guts. "That'll show you!" he yelled out into the street before slamming the window shut and ran back to the bathroom. Leaving the towel behind as it had gotten caught in the window jam. But it barely delayed him except for landing him sprawled on his back, head towards the window, on his bed completely nude but for clinging water. That didn't last very long at all before he made good on his escape.

Slamming the bathroom door shut behind him, he accidentally caught his ankle in the door, causing him to fall face first onto his bathroom floor with a severely bruised ankle, sore nose, cracked forehead, aching arms, bruised elbows, and twitching fingers. Iruka just lay on the floor and listened as the door slammed against the wall and started to close again jittering on its hinges slightly. "I hate my life. Bad, bad morning."

Iruka started banging his head on the floor and clutching his hair tightly. "Why me? Really, why? What did I do that was so wrong? Recently? Those birds deserved everything they got! I don't know about that crow, but those damned song birds deserved _everything_ they got! Damn it!" He pounded his fist on the floor only to curl into a ball around the hand, "Ow! Bad hand, bad hand! _Mother fucking hell!_ Why?!"

After laying there five minutes twitching and ranting, Iruka finally uncurled and tried to stand up only to put his injured hand into the toilet bowl. Iruka dropped his head onto the edge of the toilet and groaned. "Nothing's going to go right today, is it kami-sama? You mean to drive me to suicide don't you? Well, I _hate you_!" Iruka whined. "And you too, Murphy. I _really_ hate you."

Gathering himself together Iruka tied an enormous beach towel, that he got from the closet# and walked into the bedroom again to the bed stand and picked up the phone and pushed one of the programmed numbers.

_"Hello, Konoha Travel Agency. How may I help you?"_ came the _way_ too chipper woman's voice.

_'I **hate** morning people.'_ Iruka grumbled internally before answering as politely as he was able, although his voice was raspy from yelling. "Can you transfer me to People Resources?"

_"Right away sir. Hold on a minute please."_ Then the line cut out. No muzak, nothing. Silence. It figured.

Iruka pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it, just in time as a high pitched buzzing suddenly emanated from the earpiece causing him to wince and turn it off. Ignoring the feeling of inevitability that filled him he hit redial only to have the same high pitched noise emerge. "I would have preferred the _morning person_." After hanging up the phone, the noise was still emanating from it. "What the _hell?!_" backing away from the phone he went to window and opened it again.

Looking around outside briefly he latched onto the most likely target to answer his queries. "Kiba!"

"I-Iruka-sensei! Whatever I did, I didn't do it! I don't care what Chouji tells you, I did _not_ have _anything_ to do with what happened!" Kiba yelled backing into the cart behind him scared at what Iruka might do to him, or make him do.

"I don't care about you dropping purple and red dye into the women's bath. They might, I don't. Although the pork rinds were a bit much in my opinion. Do you know what pork grease does in hot water, mixed with the oils that those women use, not to mention that brand of dye? Nevermind that though, I need you to go to Kurenai's apartment and check and see if her phone works."

"O-okay," Kiba said before dashing into Kurenai's apartment building to escape the glares and approaching doom from the women around him.

Iruka waited impatiently for Kiba's report eyeing the people on the street distrustfully.

"Oi! Iruka-san! What's going on in your apartment? You having a party or something and didn't invite me?"

Iruka gave the caller an evil glare and would most likely have thrown something appropriately heavy and sharp at them if not for Kiba's nervous yell from Kurenai's window.

"Iruka-sensei, it's not working. Actually it's doing this weird high-pitched bug call," Kiba yelled almost falling out of the window. The only thing that saved him was Kurenai holding onto the back of his jacket.

"Bug call?" _'That's... weird.'_

"Yeah, I've been around Shino enough to know a bug call when I hear one. Kurenai-sensei says that it needs to be looked into. It could be very serious. But only after I clean off her window. She somehow got a big bug implanted into it."

"Figures," Iruka muttered darkly before pulling himself back into his apartment and going to find some coffee. Coffee can solve anything. Or at least lessen the horrible morning he was having.

Limping in a strange manner, Iruka dragged himself through the other door into his living room, only to stop one step down to stare in horror at the sight before him. There was water. A lot of it. All. Over.

"_What the hell is going on here!?_" Iruka yelled at the top of his lungs, a more than slightly desperate sound to his voice. "Where the hell is this water coming from?"

Iruka stepped out onto the water and wandered around his living room cautiously only to find the cause of the water. His hot water heater had a hole in it. There was an indent in the shape of Gai's face; the water was escaping through the tip of the nose.

"How the _hell_ did he do that?! _Gai!_" Iruka yelled furious. There _would_ be blood. And not his this time. Gai. Would. _Die_. And his turtle would be _boiled_! _'I like turtle soup. I haven't had any in such a long time. But who will replace Gai as my friend and cousin? ...Who cares?'_

Iruka slowly and carefully closed the door to the water closet and leaned his back against it, resting for a moment before his entire body started shaking. "It... figures. It just figures," Iruka muttered before he burst out into hysterical laughter. He slowly slid down the door to sit on the surface of the water still laughing. In the middle of his laughing he started yelling curses down on the world out of sheer frustration at the entire fucked up situation. But he was still laughing.

"Damn... it hurts," Iruka gasped out before he started to hiccup. After a minute of uncontrollable hiccups Iruka started freaking out and beating the surface of the water, causing it to waver like the surface of a water bed that a hyper six-year-old was jumping and running on. Quite frankly it was a tribute to his chakra control that he didn't once break the surface of the water.

After Iruka calmed down he looked into the water for the first time, rather than just looking _at_ it, and realized that it wasn't _normal_. It was... brackish. Very brackish. Not to mention it had an odd smell. Slightly... subtly flowery. Kind of like an expensive woman's perfume. Very expensive. The kind that doesn't have the chemical smell. Which really disturbed him; because some of the stuff he had had open and sitting on his floor the night before, _had_ had that chemical smell.

"What the _hell_? I have no idea how that's even _possible_. I am never going to get my apartment back once the Hunter-nin and ANBU get a hold of whatever the water has become," Iruka grumbled.

Sighing, he pulled himself to his feet again and headed towards his kitchen. He paused as he looked down at the floating trunk. "I should probably have put that stuff back in last night," Iruka muttered. _'I mean, I didn't even recognize a lot of the powders I found in it. Of course, that was the trunk that held my great-grandfather's Hunter-nin gear. Why was I having Gai help me sort it? Oh yeah, it was his great-grandfather too. Gai is still going to die. He should never have brought that sake with him, but he said something about drinking in his memory, and according to family stories he was a lush. To put it nicely. Most, i.e. me, would just call him an alcoholic, with brief moments of sobriety that just so happened to coincide with missions.'_

Iruka grabbed the handle of the trunk with his uninjured hand and lugged it into the flooded kitchen with him. Setting it down on his table he went to search through his cupboards for an empty bottle. "Where the hell did they go?" Iruka grumbled, annoyed at Gai's drunken rearranging of his things. Again.

"I really need to stop meeting the few people in my life here. They ruin everything. I'm still not sure just _what_ Gai did with my blender, and that was six months ago. I do know it's _somewhere_ in my apartment. Maybe I should tell the psycho yes and become a Hunter. I think my life would be _much_ simpler. Not to mention I can't let _Gai_ carry on the family honor in this. He would totally ruin generation's worth of accumulated honor. There we are!" Iruka crowed triumphantly as he dropped down from the ceiling holding a large glass bottle.

"Why the hell did Gai put it in _that_ cubby? That's the one with the spider." Iruka looked at the bottle and cursed again when he saw the large, purple with neon yellow stripes, spider sitting comfortably in the base of the bottle. "Damnit. What is it with you and bottles Akiri? You really shouldn't do that. One of these days I might accidentally put something in on top of you."

"Yeah right. You're too much like that lush," the spider rebuked, its voice distorted by the bottle. "You've been _loud_ this morning. The entire house has been vibrating almost constantly since you fell off of your bed."

"You know, that's really creepy how much you know just from vibrations," Iruka muttered.

"I'm a spider. Of course I know what's going on around me. I wouldn't get any food if I didn't. You sure as hell don't feed me."

"Why should I? You're perfectly capable of feeding yourself. You just want to sit around and eat your young and have others feed you when they're gone," Iruka pointed out as he pulled another bottle from the cubby and dropped down to carefully fill it with the brackish water.

"That's a good idea. Why don't we try it," Akiri said as she walked out of the bottle onto Iruka's hand where she slowly tapped her front two legs on his hand.

"Stop acting like your going to bite me, Akiri. I know for a fact that you would never bite anyone of my line without damn good cause. Much like I won't actually drown you. Tempted though I may be at the moment." Iruka set the filled bottle in the trunk before slamming the lid closed and placing a paper seal on the latch to ensure it wasn't opened any time soon by someone that really shouldn't see the contents.

Akiri calmly walked up Iruka's arm to sit on his bare shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to find coffee. Do you know where Gai might have put it?" Iruka asked as he opened the freezer. "Great, looks like the fridge short circuited. Wonderful. Now I need to go shopping again. I _love_ shopping. What the _hell_?" Iruka muttered pulling out a Tupperware container with something chunky, gooey, and moldy green. "What was this? Oh, right Gai's attempt at a chicken curry salad. Want to try it?" Iruka asked holding up the container in offering.

"Is there insect?" Akiri asked.

"I think there might have been some grasshoppers in it. I'm not sure. You can find out on your own. I'm going in search of coffee," Iruka said setting the container onto the counter and pulling off the cover before holding up his hand for Akiri to step onto so he could lower her to the counter.

Having deposited the spider onto the counter Iruka looked back into the freezer only to find the object of his quest. Pulling it out swiftly he cracked open the container and deeply inhaled the godly smell of ground coffee beans. "So _good_."

Walking over to his coffee maker he was about to pour a scoop of coffee into the filter only to be startled by a sudden loud blare of sound come from just outside his kitchen window causing him to jump and fling the open container through the glass window at whatever had made the noise. He instinctively jumped back so as not to get hit by any of the glass. When he settled into a defensive crouch on top of the trunk he stared in horror at the new hole in the window and the puddle that the coffee can had fallen into.

"You're very twitchy today, Iruka. Maybe that loud snaky human is right; you _do_ need to get laid. I have observed that it makes you humans much more relaxed," Akiri said sardonically from where she stood on the edge of the container waving her front legs reprovingly at him.

"_Shut up!_"

"Touchy." Akiri leaned forward and took a bite of the green gunk. "Oh, I _like_ this."

Iruka transferred his horrified gaze to Akiri as she started to eat with spidery gusto. "That is so wrong," Iruka whispered in repulsion.

"I heard that."

"Yeah... Anyway, I might as well try to at least leave my apartment. Clothes. Clothes would be good. Do I have any that aren't ruined?" Iruka muttered as he headed back to his bedroom in search of something to wear that wasn't immersed in the 'water'. _'Why did Gai take all my clothes into the living room anyway? And why did I let him? I would **never** give him that much leeway just because he's my cousin. Though it was kind of funny seeing him wearing some of the things in my closet.'_

Entering his room again he had just enough time to glimpse a stereotypically disguised ninja jump out his window. Growling Iruka started throwing random heavy objects out the window (that the 'ninja' had left open). Although his dresser did get stuck halfway out.

Which led to him standing on his bed wrapped in a gothic beach towel trying to shove the dresser out the window. Thus explaining why his feet slipped on his sheets, causing him to fall and crack his head on the top end of the dresser, bounce off and fall on his back onto the floor. Onto _both_ of the boots#.

Then the dresser started to fall out of the window. Towards him. Oh, so slowly. "No. Fucking. Way. There is just no fucking way," Iruka whined horrified. Iruka managed to do a very awkward and painful crabwalk backwards into the wall. Head first. Just in time, seeing that the dresser had fallen just where he had been mere seconds before.

Iruka ended up after the dust cleared curled up in a ball in the corner with the blanket wrapped around him. The five highly dangerous summon spiders that he cohabitated with tried their best to comfort him. Though it was a bit hollow seeing as how none of them where bigger than a newborn kitten. While yes it was enormous for spiders they were still spiders and just couldn't understand what was bothering Iruka so much. Although they _could_ understand the whole squashing issue, being spiders and all.

Not to mention they told him to go out and eat something raw and bloody. That he caught himself. According to them that solved all ills. It didn't help that they keep drinking his blood from his wounds. Thus Iruka spent over two hours just huddled in the corner and trying to pretend nothing existed outside of the blanket that covered his head.

What finally dragged him out was Gai. Literally. He grabbed Iruka's ankle when he got no response and dragged him out of the corner.

"You don't understand!" Iruka yelled. "And you're supposed to die today!"

"Now why would I, Maito Gai, die on such a beauteous day as this one?" Gai said holding Iruka suspended upside-down from his ankle.

"I was going to kill you because of what you did to my apartment. Have you seen my living room? If you haven't, let's just say I'm glad I live in a split level." Iruka tried to move the towel out of his face. "Can you set me down? I really don't like the way this conversation looks."

Gai dropped Iruka onto the floor. "What do you mean your living room? Why would something be wrong with your living room? Did all of your spiders lay eggs at once again?" Gai asked confused.

"Just go take a look for yourself. I need to get ready to go _feed_ some birds," Iruka muttered as he stood up and gathered his towel and dignity.

"You do realize that your vendetta against your own summon creatures is most unusual. Or maybe unnatural?" Gai pointed out as he looked over the chaos of the room.

"I don't mind the ones that don't sing. I can even get along with those that only sing late in the afternoon or at night. But the _morning_ ones I can't _stand_. Thus I feed them. What the hell do you want anyway? Don't you have a team to trauma- I mean train?" Iruka inquired as he searched through his closet for some sort of clothing. He eventually found an old pair of almost white blue jeans under an old dragon festival mask.

"What the hell happened in here?" Gai's voice exclaimed from the front of the apartment.

"I have had a colossally bad morning," Iruka called back as he pulled on the jeans. He didn't even want to think of what would happen if he tried finding underwear. Not to mention he thought that the intruder he had freaked on had stolen it all.

Iruka looked down at the jeans he now wore. He had gotten them when he was sixteen and then they had been slightly baggy length wise. Now they fit (a little loose around the waist though), it was just that they were covered in holes. On the right leg the one vertical one went from mid-thigh along the seam and ended at mid-calf held together with rusty safety pins.

Then it had about three other rips, one across the back of the thigh just above the start of the vertical one, another was a few inches above the bottom hem which was barely there. The last rip was across the back of the knee almost reaching the seam on each side. It complimented the hole in the front of the knee nicely. The left leg was even worse, although the holes and rips were thankfully smaller.

Although Iruka found the most annoying one was the rip that was underneath the left back pocket. If someone reached into that pocket, their hand wouldn't stop at the bottom seam. Fishing around in the closet again he came out with a heavy leather belt with the double holes, and a stylized crow tengu buckle.

"That suits you," Akiri said from where she stood on top of the door.

"What?" Iruka asked, confused, looking up at her and the other four spiders.

"The crow tengu for a bird summoner? Although why you want such dangerous summons is beyond me," Akiri scolded in disgust.

"Akiri, I'm not exactly a spider person. The birds suit me fine. So long as they're not _morning_ birds." Iruka turned to go look through the rest of the room for something to wear other than the mesh shirt he had found. He was desperate for a shirt, but not desperate enough to wear just a mesh shirt that could easily fit Ibiki, in fact, he thought it might actually be Ibiki's. "Gai! Can you help me find a shirt?" Iruka called out as he searched through the dresser drawers.

"Of course," Gai said emerging from the front.

Iruka nodded in thanks as he knelt down and searched through the drawers tiredly.

After ten minutes of silence Gai held a small black sleeveless turtleneck in front of Iruka. "I have succeeded."

"Gai? That won't fit me." Iruka took the shirt and stretched it slightly to demonstrate his point only to have it stretch a lot further than he expected. "Right. Fine. Whatever." Sighing, defeated, Iruka pulled on the shirt over his head. "How do I look?"

"Do not take this the wrong way Iruka, but you look like a prostitute," Gai said oh-so-helpfully.

"Wonderful. Guess I might as well make the image complete," Iruka muttered, and reluctantly pulled the large mesh shirt over his head. One shoulder seemed to want to constantly fall off. "I don't suppose you have a vest you can loan me do you?" Iruka asked miserably.

"Unfortunately not," Gai said gallantly.

Sighing, Iruka wrapped his bleeding injuries and finished dressing in the evil boots of doom, gloves (think Kakashi's), a dark blue beanie#, and a loose brown jacket that had once belonged to an ex of his or maybe Anko. Or maybe it had even belonged to Gai before he took up his green fetish.

"Now then, we shall feed you and you will be ready to go forth and protect our beautiful village," Gai said, flashing his sparkling smile.

"I'm not going to work. I can't work like this. Maybe I'll stop by and say I won't be working today, though. After I go to the hospital," Iruka muttered, walking out of the room, ignoring both Gai's dramatics and the spiders that jumped down onto his jacket.

"Why would you need to go to the hospital?"

"Let's see, I have a hole in my foot, a hole in my hand, multiple cracks to my skull, bruising on various body parts, and a bitch of a case of bad luck. Something's probably going to happen when you feed me," Iruka said darkly as he entered the kitchen. "That is, of course, if it actually manages to get as far as food appearing in front of me."

"Sarcasm actually suits you. Especially dressed as you are," Gai pointed out dryly.

"Whatever. Now should we try to start the stove? I'm not sure if that's a good idea knowing my luck today." Iruka sat on the table, next to the trunk, and watched to see what Gai would do.

Gai gave Iruka a confused look but went about preparing to make instant ramen. When Gai turned on the stove there was a soft crack, a pop, then a boom as the stove exploded into fire (it had been a range top) and flew towards Gai, away from the wall, like a living, vengeful thing. Here to avenge itself for all the monstrosities that Gai had made upon it, as well as that one time he managed to stuff himself into the oven because Anko said he couldn't.

Gai reacted to the malevolent fiery force heading towards him at a high and painful velocity and kicked it through the wall. "What the fuck was that?!" Gai demanded staring in horror at the slightly burning hole left in the wall that allowed in the panicked screams from outside to be clearly heard.

"Where the _hell_ did that come from?" Kurenai's furious voice demanded loudly. "Do I just have this sign on me today that says to throw inappropriate things at me? _What was with that bug!?_"

"Bug?" Gai asked, confused at the seeming randomness of the screech. "Do you know of what Kurenai-sensei speaks, Iruka?"

"I threw a beetle at her," Iruka answered negligently, eying the hole. "Good aim. You didn't hit any of my cabinets. Or that little old lady that had been crossing the street. Oh wait, that's my landlady. Nevermind. Couldn't you have aimed a little to the right?"

"You are strange and off-putting sometimes Iruka," Gai remarked blandly before leaning out the new window. "Sorry, I just reacted. Be glad the water didn't get out."

"You hit my dog!" the old lady yelled furiously at Gai.

"I apologize." Gai called back apologetically.

"Sorry isn't good enough! He was my only dog!" the old lady scolded shaking her fist at Gai.

"It was just a reaction! I had no time to think!" Gai tried to explain.

"That doesn't bring back my dog!"

"Baba!" Iruka called, leaning out next to Gai.

"Oh, Iruka! How are you?"

Iruka paused slightly before continuing, "...Whatever. Didn't you hate that dog?"

"That's not the point! He still killed him!"

"Weren't you going to sell him to that one butcher?"

"That is completely besides the point!"

"Didn't he attack you every night in your sleep?"

"Once again beside the point!"

"Didn't you once throw him off a cliff? A high one?"

"He came back again, so it's beside the point!"

"Weren't you saying last year you were going to get him put down if you could save up the money?"

"What does this line of questioning have to do with _anything_?"

"The dog was going to die. The dog was meant to die. It is now dead, along with my stove. I should be complaining about that dog of yours destroying my stove."

"...True. I can't argue that one."

Gai looked extremely disturbed by the entire conversation.

"Just go with it, Gai. I know how to handle her," Iruka whispered conspiratorially.

"I heard that!"

"I know you did Baba, you have the ears of an old bat."

"You're such a sweet young man, complimenting an old woman like that. It near makes me blush."

"Baba, you're incapable of blushing. I _know_ what you and that old guy two blocks down get up to once a month."

"How'd you find out about that?"

"I walked in on you two. I was highly traumatized. I _never_ want to see _that_ again."

"Well you wouldn't believe some of the things I've walked in on those spiders of yours doing."

"What are you insinuating human?" Akiri demanded scandalized.

"That poor beetle."

Gai and Iruka looked down at Akiri horrified.

"Not like that! We were having dinner."

"And I told you no parties!" the old lady yelled at Akiri.

"There weren't that many guests," Akiri defended.

"I couldn't see the floor there were so many spiders."

"Akiri! How many spiders did you invite?" Iruka demanded.

"Not that many, just some of my closest relatives."

"Oh, kami-sama," Gai exclaimed horrified.

"Point, made and proven," the old lady said smugly.

"You have no room to be picky old woman! We pay _our_ rent on time!" Akiri yelled back smugly, as she waved one of her front legs insultingly. "Those loan sharks came by again day before yesterday, and we had to convince them to leave Iruka's apartment alone. They're after _you_ anyway."

Gai blinked surprised, "You pay rent, Akiri?"

"Of course we pay rent. We would never leave Iruka to have to make ends meet in the care of our home," Akiri hissed reproachfully.

"Then why don't my spiders do the same?"

"They do, why do you think you can afford that very lovely condo with the dojo in back? Even if you do get paid more than Iruka, you still wouldn't be able to afford that place."

"Where do you get the money from? Or should I not ask?"

"We sell our venom and occasionally our services to the ANBU and Hunter-nin."

Gai nodded thoughtfully, "Is this why Shiru has been gone for the last two weeks?"

"I think so, although Shiru is having a... thing with a... thing," Akiri said voice laden with disgust.

"What?" Gai asked confused.

"What Akiri means is that Shiru has been seeing one of the forest spiders. As a result, the entire... family... has been trying to set her up with some nice, what was it, ah yes... edible spider of similar breeding," Iruka translated.

"Damn straight! That thing is indescribably beneath her. Not to mention he's poisonless!" Akiri sounded positively scandalized by the last part.

Iruka shook his head in disgust before turning back to his land lady, "Oi Baba, you got any bird food for me?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"I feel the pressing need to feed some."

"That's nice, remember to bring me back some."

"Whatever Baba. I'll see you when I go out." Iruka pulled back into his apartment and started at a bemused Gai staring at him. "What."

"She feeds your need to... feed?"

"Yeah, why? I bring her back some."

"Does psychosis run in our family?"

"Gai? We're ninja; our family have been for a very, very long time. It comes with the job not the breeding." Iruka snorted and turned to hunt for his vest. He knew it was _somewhere_ in the living room. Unless the spiders had been playing with it again.

"Point. Wait, what are you doing?" Gai asked as Iruka walked off.

"Looking for my vest, and something to kill you with," was Iruka's bland reply.

"Right, oh hey, my chicken curry salad. I wonder if it's still good."

"It was in my freezer."

"That's mine!" Akiri yelled jumping into the container to guard it from browsing ninja.

"What? Why?" Gai demanded.

"Because Iruka gave it me. Go eat your young like a nice young... man," Akiri ordered.

"One, I do not have young to eat, two I would never eat my young if I did have any. That is not a human trait," Gai told the spider, offended by the thought.

"What about that one, you know with the hair... Tenton or something like that."

"She's my _student_, not my young."

Iruka walked up behind the two and stared at them for a moment before attacking, causing Gai to jump out the window, into Iruka's scary neighbor-lady's arms, and Akiri to fly in the container only to hit a cat in the face. Gai let out a manly yell of surprised terror and was suddenly standing on top of Kurenai's head and the cat instantly collapsed dead from Akiri's bite.

Iruka burst out laughing along with another neighbor at the sudden rise in street noise again.

"More food," drifted Akiri's too pleased voice from the cat.

"Oh, cat!" another of the spiders exclaimed and the other four joined Akiri in devouring the feast of green chicken curry salad and alley cat.

"What the hell is up with this neighborhood?!" Kiba yelled from behind a mail box.

"It's all because Iruka lives here," the landlady piped up cheerfully. "There's a cult across the street, a scary man-lady as my tenant, too many spiders, not enough song birds, random weirdness while him and his friends are drinking, and a turf war between summon birds and summon spiders. I rather like living here. I would have sold out years ago if he hadn't livened things up. Ninja villages are a lot quieter than you would think, though it's not usually this interesting. What is going on up there Iruka?"

"I'm having a really bad, fucking day."

"It's only eight AM."

"I know, and I already have to go to the hospital for injuries received since I woke up."

"I'll just go get your bird food then," the landlady called cheerfully as she entered her apartment.

"You do that." Iruka turned his head and frowned down into the bush at the corner of the building. "What's Akimaru doing?"

"Nothing!" Kiba howled before skittering behind Kurenai for protection. Kurenai looked down at Kiba thoughtfully and murmured something causing Kiba to loudly deny it.

Tilting his head Iruka frown before throwing his soaked vest at the dog. Akimaru yelped and pelted down the street like Tsunade was after him to sell him to settle some debts. The dog had had that happen once. It shall never be repeated so long as he had anything to say about it.

"Gai, fetch; and don't touch it," Iruka yelled in a wheezy voice before coughing suddenly. "Is my voice giving out? Just figures." Grumbling to himself Iruka threw the trunk out the hole before him. He jumped suddenly as he felt a hand find that _one_ hole in his pants. He yelped and mule kicked his assaulter.

"Nice pants, Iruka-kun," a deep, amused voice said from behind him.

"Stop feeling me up!" Iruka yelled as he put the trunk between him and his scary man-lady neighbor.

"Iruka?" Gai's worried voice called.

"What? I'm kinda busy trying not to get raped here!" Iruka yelled as he backed away from his neighbor.

"Your vest killed the bush."

"Good throw it at her."

"What?"

"The man-lady."

Gai looked thoughtfully at the vest where it hung from the end of a stick. "I don't think it'll work."

"Damn."

"Hohoho! You say the nicest things."

"_Nice_? You think that's _nice_?" Kiba squeaked.

The front door to the apartment building opened up and this landlady came out dragging a large trash bag. "You have fun now, Iruka."

Nodding in thanks Iruka grabbed his possessions (the bag, trunk, vest, and Gai), and disappeared down the street.

Several blocks later Iruka dropped Gai in front of a coffee shop. "Wait here," Iruka ordered shoving the trunk into Gai's arms.

Limping forwards Iruka was just about to open the door to the shop when the whole building suddenly started to crumble. Iruka, Gai and other bystanders watched in shock as a cloud of giant termites rose from the building and flew off leaving behind one thoroughly eaten coffee shop.

"I've never seen anything like it," Gai murmured in shock.

Iruka snorted in disgust. "Figures. Gai, get me to the hospital before I have to do something drastic. Like neuter you, even after we agreed you would be the one to actually breed."

Gai nodded silently as he picked up Iruka and sped off to the hospital. Upon arrival he dropped the pissed off ninja like he had just found out Iruka was one of the spider's 'stashes'.

Iruka glared at one of the ninja guarding the door of the hospital in such heat that they actually drew their weapons and dove for cover. "Get me a doctor."

"You might try to be polite," Gai helpfully put in.

"Now." Iruka continued to glare at the cowering guard as they scrambled off to obey.

A few minutes later a worried doctor and several guards burst into the room expecting Orochimaru himself to be there while having a bad hair day. Instead they found Maito Gai guarding a trunk with a neon spider on his head. While a prostitute was explaining in a deathly calm voice what he would do to one of the janitors with the knife he was holding.

"Sir, can you please tell us what's wrong?" The doctor asked breaking in firmly behind one of the guards.

"I'm having a bad day, and this idiot _said things!_" Iruka kicked the cowering man before swinging around to face the doctor. "I'm injured. Fix me." Iruka paused before adding on through clenched teeth. "Now."

"Now sir..." Before the doctor could continue, he was shoved and trampled by a rush of nurses and a couple of other doctors.

"_Iruka-sama!_"

OOO

**1. Alarm clock:** You know those old fashioned metal ones that they use in Looney Toon's that have the two bells on top. I used to have one. Those things were loud, went off every six hours if you didn't have the hammer stopped against one of the bells so it can't move, and take forever to stop on its own. But it worked so I used it for a while.  
**Another note on them:** They're heavy. A lot heavier than modern alarm clocks, they are made out of metal not plastic.  
**2. Stray gennin:** Kiba; kami only knows what _he_ was doing there.  
**3. Anko's bra:** It's got neon camouflage background with cute neon cartoon snakes with shiny beads for eyes. Very tacky and loud.  
**4. Purple towel:** Anko had convinced him to buy it. They spend entirely too much time together for people whose work constantly brings them apart.  
**5. Beach towel:** It was red with an oddly shaped raven on a deformed human skull.  
**6. The boots:** The one in the bathroom had bounced off the wall next to the window and landed next to its mate.  
**7. Dark blue beanie:** He had given up on the hair ties as a lost cause as they were somewhere in his living room.


End file.
